03/10/2026
"So many of us walk through life with unhealed stories about “mother” or “father,” about what they did or did not do, about how they failed to see us or hold us or meet the parts of us that were aching to be known.
But if healing is what we truly seek, then we must dare to step beyond the familiar narrative of parent and child and look deeper into the essence of what actually unfolded.
The labels “mom” and “dad” are powerful archetypes, and they carry immense emotional weight. They bind us to certain expectations, to ideas of how things should have been.
Yet those labels also obscure the deeper truth: before they were “mother” or “father,” they were simply human beings, shaped by forces they never chose and carrying pain they never resolved. And if we are to free ourselves, we must be willing to see them as such.
So take a moment and strip away the titles. See her not as “mom,” but as Sally. See him not as “dad,” but as Robert. Say their names, and in doing so, watch the illusion of authority and blame soften.
Look at them not as the towering figures of your childhood, but as the tender, frightened, confused children they once were, and in many ways, still are. They too were born into someone else’s story, shaped by someone else’s conditioning, doing their best with the limited awareness they had.
They inherited belief systems, fears, and coping mechanisms long before they ever met you. Most of the wounds they passed on were not acts of malice, but echoes of their own unmet needs.
This is not to excuse harmful behavior, but to illuminate the truth: their actions were never truly about you. They were projections of their own unresolved suffering, replaying itself unconsciously through the generations.
When we begin to see our parents through this lens, something extraordinary happens. The weight of resentment starts to loosen its grip, and the story of victimhood that once defined us begins to dissolve. We see, perhaps for the first time, that no one was to blame. Not them, not us.
Everyone was acting from the confines of their conditioning, from the small, often fearful mind that was trying desperately to protect itself. And within that understanding, forgiveness ceases to be a moral obligation or a spiritual task. It becomes the natural byproduct of awareness. We do not have to force it. It arises organically when we realize that there was never anyone to forgive in the first place, only unconsciousness acting itself out.
This is the profound liberation that unfolds when we stop relating to our parents as the mythical figures who “should have known better” and start seeing them as fallible, wounded humans navigating their own journey of inherited pain. The narrative shifts from “They hurt me” to “They too were hurting.” And in that moment, the entire framework of blame collapses.
What remains is compassion, not just for them, but for yourself. Because the resentment you have been carrying was never just toward them; it was toward the younger version of you who felt powerless, unseen, or unloved. By releasing the story of fault, you free that younger self from the burden of needing an apology that may never come. You reclaim the authority to define who you are now, independent of what they could or could not give.
And something miraculous happens inside of you when this shift occurs. The heart, once armored by anger and betrayal, begins to open again. The nervous system, long trapped in a defensive posture, starts to relax. The story of “what happened” loses its emotional charge, and in its place emerges a deep peace, a peace born not of forgetfulness, but of profound understanding. This is the healing that transcends history. It does not rewrite the past, but it releases you from being its prisoner. And in doing so, it allows you to love them not as the parents you once wished they were, but as the humans they have always been. It allows you to love yourself not as the child who was hurt, but as the being who is now free."
- Logan Barone
